Fight the Good Fight
by The Red Hoodie
Summary: Five years ago, a virus began picking off mutants in drones. Pooling resources, Xavier's Mansion houses the attack and defense force for the protection of mutants. One of these teams is the husband-wife duo of Logan and Jip. After spending years killing their friends and fellow mutants, the two soldiers might have just found a way to save the world.


_**A/N:**_ So this is made up of various comic book characters (Hellboy, Wolverine, Rogue and Shadowcat) on top of two original comic book characters (Jip Lee and Kris Darko). All of them were involved in a roleplay community that I found when I first began to rp. Without this group of friends, I'm not sure that I would have stuck with roleplaying for as long as I have and I am still friends with a number of the people behind the characters. Coming up in June 2014, it will be ten years since I made Jip and met these characters and people. So I wanted to make a fic marrying all of the characters as well as following the storylines and plots that the characters had going on between them, to make this as personal as possible. I don't really care if anyone who reads this who was not part of this group understands these characters, because I do and I know the people behind the other characters will also understand and that's all that I really want to happen. Without further ado, I will shut up and let the reading commence.

* * *

A familiar _snikt_ sound filled the air and full lips curled into a sly smile as dark eyes swept from shining claws to the bad guys lining up in front of her. These were the moments she lived for: just her and Logan, side by side, fighting the _good_ fight, as the saying goes.

Jip had nothing to _snikt_ but she was far from defenseless. Silently, two blades slid out of her inner wrists, growing as long as katanas. A few inches on the bottoms had softened edges and were wide enough for handles. The closest name someone could pin to the metal she grew out of her body at an endless rate was organic steel. Jip really didn't care. It was strong and it could cut through anything.

"Ready?" Logan's voice was gruff and welcoming to her ears.

"Born ready," Jip replied, tightening her grip on the swords.

Their opponents were a group of humans and low-level mutants who were only the first line of defense for their real target: Lucas Cage, a once powerful mutant whose mind was ravaged by the M-Virus so that he was positively insane. He was now doing more damage than good and he needed to be taken down.

The battle started with a charge, Logan rushing forward, taking one of the pawns by surprise. Claws through the chest and tossed aside, the attacking began on all sides. There were twenty of them; easy to handle for the seasoned fighters.

Jip brandished her weapons, twisted to the side as a mutant with a powerful jumping ability tried to catch her off guard. He got a sword through his heart and his skin turned to stone, leaving the sword lodged there. Leaving it, Jip ducked and kicked out, her boot making contact with someone's stomach. Gunshots rang through the air and Jip felt warm pain flow through her arm and side. It didn't stop her. The bullets were pushed out moments later.

Someone grabbed her from behind, locking an arm around her throat. Bad move on a girl with a sword in hand. Flipping the blade, she shoved it backward into his gut and spun around to yank the weapon up a few inches before kicking him off it. She heard Logan let out a roar but she knew he was fine and probably close to finishing off his half of their targets. _Show off_.

The woman who ran at Jip next had a mutation that gave her small claws out of the tips of her fingers and even a feline form that landed her with a cat-like face and fine hair that covered what skin could be seen. She had sharp canines. The word _kitty_ popped into Jip's mind and angered her. Without a second thought, she grew a short seven inch blade out of her free hand and stood her ground at the pounce, calculating the cat-woman's impact. With one upward thrust, Jip's dagger went straight through the woman's jaw and into her brain, killing her instantly.

Kicking the body away, Jip felt a blow to the small of her back. She stumbled off balance and somersaulted over a dead body, dropping her katana with the motion. "Son of a bitch," she growled as she began to stand, ready to produce more weapons.

She didn't get that far. Someone had grabbed her katana and come up behind her. The blade was shoved through her back, breaking through a few bones before protruding through her heart. The person wielding it grabbed a fistful of her hair as she went down on her knees. Someone else was walking toward her, a jagged hunting knife in hand.

Logan saw from where he was slashing through another chest. He had already been peppered with bullets and gotten a chunk of his arm bit off by a mutie with a crocodile jaw. "Okay over there, babe?" he called, though his eyes were back on the prize of taking down the remaining flunkies.

"Never better!" Jip replied, gritting her teeth as her head was yanked backward. The bastards were going to cut her throat! "Not in this life," she muttered, shifting her weight and kicking backward into a kneecap with enough force as she could muster. The guy cried out and lost his hold on her hair. The other guy was already crouching down in front of her. She moved quickly, ramming his nose with her skull. She took the knife from his hand and slashed his own throat, the blood spraying her face.

Gripping the sharp edge of the katana, she pulled it from her chest, her organs and bones mending immediately. She spun with the blade in a bloody hand, slicing through the soft belly of one of the few remaining humans. His intestines piled out of his body as he slumped to his knees.

Three left and they looked like they were pissing their pants. It was obvious they were going to die and they were terrified. Trying to put up any sort of fight was only kind of honorable. They were picked off easily. One by a perfectly tossed five inch dagger by Jip, straight through the neck, the other with a slashed chest by Logan and the last, a human, tossed punches at Jip that she dodged before getting a kick to the stomach. A new knife grew into her left hand and she crouched, swinging her leg around to knock the last standing flunkie onto his ass. She brought the knife up through his chest, piercing his heart. She shoved him to the ground as the life sputtered out of him.

"Nice work," Logan commented as she straightened up and joined him in facing down their target.

Bishop wasn't alone. He had one other highly recognizable mutant at his side: Jamie Madrox, otherwise known as Multiple Man.

"You're fucking kidding me," Logan muttered under his breath. As Multiple Man, Jamie could create innumerable copies of himself, each of which could move and think on their own. They'd gone up against each other before.

But Jamie wasn't looking too hot. His skin was pale, his eyes rimmed with red and there was blood leaking from his right ear.

He was infected.

_Of course._

"So this is awkward," Jip said, breaking the uneasy silence that was interrupted only with Bishop's constant mumbling.

Logan glanced over at her. She had splashes of crimson marring her flawless skin, a strength in her stance and ferocity in her eyes. If this was what his life had boiled down to doing—killing mutants he had once been friends with—then there was no one he'd rather have at his side.

"What's it gonna be, bub? The hard way or the easy way?" The words were directed at Bishop.

Jip's nostrils were filled with the tangy sour smell that accompanied anyone too far gone from the M-Virus. Both of the men in front of her stank of it. "You're not looking too hot there Madrox." Not only was he past his prime years, he was on the downslope of the painful death left behind by the virus.

"Wanna take a crack at me, darlin'?" As he spoke, his gums shown almost as white as his teeth.

Sucking in a breath, Jip glanced over at Logan. "Distract Bishop till I get back," she said. She knew he could kill Bishop on his own, but she also knew that she was just as skilled a fighter as her other half. They were a _team_, they were supposed to finish jobs _together_.

"Can't promise anything," Logan said, forming his hands into fists. "All right, Bishop. Still got sense enough to use your fancy—" He was cut short by a blast of pure energy hitting his chest.

Jip dove to the side and when she looked up she was surrounded by five Jamie's. "Great, you can still multiply," she grumbled, rolling into a crouch. At her sides, her wrists tingled as she imagined the best weapon to take out five guys at once. "Why don't you fight me like a man, huh?"

"'Fraid you can't take me on?" Only one of the voices spoke, the other faces looked thinner and paler than the original. It was easy to see which one was the _real_ Jamie Madrox.

"Nah. Afraid you'll hurt yourself, old man," she said, wondering if she would even need any weapons to take him out. Killing with her bare hands was always a thrill. But she knew Jamie…in an acquaintance type of way, but still. They had worked together a handful of times.

The virus was messing with him so badly so that the moment she propelled herself to her feet, fist making contact with the jaw of one of the duplicates, the body disappeared immediately. Thinking of a small .22 caliber handgun, her left wrist stung as she elbowed another duplicate in the solar plexus and it too disappeared. The real Jamie caught her off guard with a punch to the face, but it broke his concentration and his other selves disappeared, leaving just him and Jip.

"There we go, put up a fight," Jip encouraged him. Years ago, she had no problems killing people if they weren't defending themselves, but she had changed.

Jaime stomped toward her, and she let him land a punch or two as her ears calculated the fight between Logan and Bishop. It was loud, noisy. Buildings around them had walls broken through, but Bishop was still standing.

The moment Jamie stomped on her foot, Jip froze and looked him right in the eye. "Bad move, these are my favorite boots," she said before lifting the gun in her hand and shooting him through the temple. Blood and brains splattered from the direct hit and his body fell at her feet.

Tossing aside the shiny toy-sized gun, Jip sucked in a breath and the metal she created morphed into an AK-47, locked and loaded. The weapon in hand, she jogged toward where Logan and Bishop were fighting inside a building. It was dark and damp. Logan was slashing out with claws and Bishop was going at him like a rabid animal, blasting him over and over again with energy. _Where was he getting the energy from?_ It didn't make sense. Unless it was just the way his mutation decided to go on the fritz thanks to the M-Virus.

Not stopping to think, with Bishop's back to her, Jip lifted the gun and fired, grounding her feet and squinting her eyes against the flashes of light from the bullets leaving the gun. She unloaded a whole clip into Bishop's back and the monster of a man fell forward like a mountain, narrowing missing Logan.

Tossing aside the gun, Jip flexed her hands as she walked toward the fallen body. Logan had claws out on one hand and crouched to the ground, pressing his other hand to Bishop's neck.

"He dead?" Jip asked, noting that the spray of bullets had cascaded Logan in blood. That hadn't been her intent, but at least they matched now.

Logan didn't reply right away, but finally he nodded and pushed himself to his feet. "Yeah. Madrox?"

"Yep," she replied simply.

Both of them looked down at the body. Lucas Bishop had a long and complicated history, it was saddening to see him go down in such a way.

"I wish we had a clean up crew," Jip said after the silence stretched a little too long. "I mean…just leaving him and Jamie here…"

Logan understood what she meant, but things were different now. They did what they did and the world was still nearing apocalypse times. There was no way they could give proper burials to all of the people who were dying and being killed daily.

"C'mon," he said instead of saying what he was thinking. He slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go home."

_Home_, right. Jip had never feel one hundred percent comfortable at Xavier's Institute. She had too much hatred for both humans and mutants when she first arrived at the place over three decades earlier. But it was home now, even for the ever-roaming warriors that were her and Logan.

The Mansion had been rebuilt so often it didn't even look like the one she had first seen. More recently, within the last decade, Xavier's school got the backing of Tony Stark. He wasn't a mutant, but he understood that the X-Men and their school was a haven for mutants, and he had financially backed the school. It was bigger, had better security and more medical equipment which was more than useful within the last five years.

Logan's bike roared through the gate after passing security. The sky was dark, not many lights were on in the school. It was the middle of the school year, but not many kids were actually learning anything anymore. Not with the mutant apocalypse looming over their heads. Many of them went home. Many mutant families came here, seeking shelter, help and hope. Many of them had died already.

It had been five years, after all.

8

There was a central entrance right to the underground levels of the Mansion. The Danger Room, the medical bays, various other training rooms and Cerebro. It was all very high tech and made Logan feel even older than he already was.

The two of them walked through the outer door and then went through various fingerprint, eye and voice scans to make sure they were who they said they were before the main door cracked open, letting them through. The female voice attached to the computer systems announced their arrival.

"Codename: Wolverine. Codename: Armory. Team: Alpha. Re-entry."

Jip rolled her eyes. "Is that really necessary?" she said under her breath.

Logan cracked a smirk beside her.

"I do like the being Team Alpha though," she murmured.

Through the doors to the shiny underparts of the Mansion, there were halls running in three directions and doors lining them. There were also a few windows that reflected the chrome color scheme. To the right and through the first door, they entered the first lab, where Henry McCoy was leaning over a microscope, desk covered in papers, computers showing images of substantially magnified genes and cells.

"How did it go?" asked the doctor, doing little other than shifting in his seat slightly to announce he was actually going to be paying attention to their answer.

"Bishop's dead," Logan said simply. "And Madrox. A few flunkies, human and mutant."

Henry was used to hearing of death, more than he liked to admit, but that was the way of the world these days. "You're both covered in blood. Go shower and get your clothes sterilized before you spread the virus everywhere."

Jip rolled her eyes and started walking across the room toward the sterilizing showers. She stripped off her jacket and blood splattered tanktop even before she was out of sight.

"Separately," Henry added, turning from his microscope to shoot a warning gaze over at Logan.

Logan shifted his eyes over to McCoy. Years ago, he might have mentioned something along the lines of "How d'you keep your hands off Ororo?" but times had changed so instead Logan just nodded before following in Jip's footsteps.

8

Hank liked to have fresh samples of infected blood to work with. He was, of course, trying to find a cure. It wasn't, as far as he could tell, human beings who had come up with the M-Virus. It didn't appear to be anything stemmed from any known mutation. It could possibly be mother nature's way of kicking down a line of evolution she deemed not suitable. Ten years spent trying to uncover the basis of this quickly progressing disease and he had come up with no solution that lasted long term.

It wasn't even a classified virus, but some mutated—ironically—virus and bacteria mixture.

Many of the most powerful mutants had been taken down by the virus and it seemed to be at random selection: the process was somewhat different for each case, but followed the same opening steps.

The virus had been passed through first the air before mutating to travel by touch and bodily secretions such as sweat. The M-Virus then attacked the cells directly correlated with working on creating an attack to a certain persons mutation. Their mutations were singled out and attacked and forced into what Hank called the _overheat_. The mutation became unstable and uncontrollable. If that didn't kill a person—and eighty-seven percent of those deceased had died from the instability of their mutation—then the fever and sickness made them so weak that they couldn't fight even the smallest of colds. Some of them died slowly, some of them died quickly.

And there was no way that Hank could pin down just how to fight against this disease that had killed off sixty-seven percent of all of the world's mutants in five years.

Pulling off his much needed glasses, Hank leaned his elbows against the counter and rubbed his face with his hands, pushing back the short, vibrant blue hairs that covered almost all of his skin. Sitting back in the chair, he folded his hands. He wasn't as young as he used to be. He might have looked it, but he certainly felt it. His eyes flickered down to the band of gold that shone through the blue. Its pair had been lost long ago, before the M-Virus had ever shown itself.

Hank was thankful that his wife wasn't here to witness the painful deaths of so many close friends, but he also, selfishly, wished she was here because he simply missed her.

8

Just yards away, Jip was washed clean of blood and left with no battle scars. She was pulling on clean clothes, just a pile of folded up jeans and a t-shirt, listening to the sounds of running water in the other shower. She ran her hands through her short hair, cropped to just a few inches in length. Long hair was too much to handle, she often took scissors to it herself since Kitty wasn't around to fix it for her.

Unhooking the chain around her neck, she slipped off the simple wedding band and pushed it onto her left ring finger where it belonged. She used her hands too often during a fight to feel safe wearing it; losing it was not an option. Especially since she had been wearing it for thirty years and counting.

Slightly surprising, considering she didn't even look to be thirty years of age. That's what happened with a healing factor. It usually kept your age somewhere around its peak, which, for Jip, seemed to be her early-twenties. She still looked too young to be with Logan, but she had long since decided that she really didn't care.

She was just hooking the chain back around her neck when Logan walked out, having only half dried off and pulled on jeans. She hadn't seen many of his injuries occur in the heat of the fight but she knew they were all healed, just as hers did. Ironically, the best mutant scientists had often said Jip's healing factor was a rival for Wolverine's, whose was the strongest known to mutant kind.

"How do you feel?" she asked, walking over to him and laying her hands on his shoulders. "I know Bishop was…"

"Not like we haven't killed our friends before," he replied, running a hand down one of her arms. "The world's changed."

"We haven't," she said quickly. "I mean, we _look_ the same. And…everyone is older and…dying." She frowned and pulled her arms back to herself. "We should go tell Scott how the mission went."

Scott Summers was nearing _(had he passed already_?) sixty. He no longer went on missions; he was the head of the Xavier Mansion these days. Charles had died fifteen years earlier, and no amount of mind-swapping could bring him back. There were small teams of two or three that made up the X-Men these days, and their mission was control, not so much saving the world from huge threats. There weren't many of those these days, with the Earth practically dying before everyone's eyes. If something happened, the Avengers could handle it.

Jip shoved her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and walked through the lab, where a small cleaning robot had taken care of any dirt or blood she and Logan had tracked through it. Hank was still hunched over the microscope.

Logan followed, falling into step beside her, but saying nothing. They made their way through the familiar halls to the elevator that lead up to the residential parts of the mansion. Once inside the small oval room, Logan decided to break the silence.

"It's getting harder."

Jip, who was staring at her boots, glanced over at him. She knew what he meant. Letting out a sigh, she nodded and crossed her arms. "I never thought I'd get tired of fighting but this is _literately_ a never ending battle." She knew the greatest minds, both mutant and human, were trying to find a cure for this horrible plague, but there had been no progress in the five years since it had shown up. It was difficult for her to keep her hopes up when nearly all of the people closest to her had succumbed to the M-Virus.

"I'm tired, too."

Jip turned her whole body to face him. "You? Are you just saying that to make me feel better? I know you enjoy fighting a whole lot more than I do." It was true. Jip had grown accustomed to fighting, to training herself into a style that worked with her mutation, to becoming a formidable foe when it came time. But Logan…killing was in his blood, it was such a big part of him, imagining him turning down the brutal lifestyle for anything else would just be…_wrong_.

"What, I can't be tired?" Logan raised his eyebrows and gave her one of his looks. The one that said he was being literal in the sense that at this very moment he was tired; he wasn't saying that he was tired of fighting.

She should have known really. "Oh, of course. You _are_ getting up there in the triple digits, old man," she said smugly as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. She stepped out into the carpeted hall. Usually it would be filled with middle schoolers and teenagers running around using their mutations openly, throwing around balls when they shouldn't, rushing to classes and goofing off. Now…it was a rare sight to see that much happiness all at once. The mutant population as a whole had gotten to the point of no return. Depression had seeped through the masses as an end came into sight that involved all of their deaths.

"Look who's talking," Logan replied, a humorous rumble forming in his chest.

Jip stopped short. Logan continued two steps ahead of her. "Oh…are you calling me old?" She was actually fifty-one, despite looking not a day over twenty-three.

Logan twisted his torso to look behind him. "You aren't young anymore, sweetheart."

One dark eyebrow arched as way of a warning. "Oh, honey, you should know better than to poke fun at a lady's age. You know I can take you."

"Oh, I know," Logan replied simply. They had always been able to hold their own against each other in a fight. Over the past thirty years, Jip had grown into her powers in such a way that made her as effortless with them as Logan was with his natural born claws.

"Are you guys going to keep flirting in the hall or are you actually going to tell me your report?" Scott Summer's poked his head out of the door a few yards away. He scoffed with impatience before retreating back into the room.

The two joined him within seconds, pulling the door snuggly shut behind them.

While Logan and Jip hadn't changed in the years since the latter had arrived at the Mansion the first time, Scott was showing his age. Hair almost entirely white, wrinkles covering his face and hands, skin a little less taunt than years ago…he still wore ruby red glasses to control his mutation, and while he was no longer on the fighting squads of X-Men, he could still hold his own in a fight. It had just been a while.

"So, what happened?" he asked, crossing his arms and resting against the edge of the massive desk.

Logan and Jip stood side by side in the middle of the room. Jip crossed slender, toned arms and tilted her head to the side, pressing her lips into a thin line. Logan took the initiative to speak.

"We located Bishop in Mutant Town. Or…what was left of it. There were twenty guards, a mixture of human and mutant. We eliminated them. None of them appeared to be infected, but they could have just been in the earliest stage." He paused and pieced together what happened next. "Bishop was holed up in his building. He had one more guard with him. Jamie Madrox."

"Multiple Man?" Scott interrupted. He and the head of X-Factor had never had a good relationship.

"That's the one, bub. Both of 'em were infected. Bishop was completely rabid. Mutation so screwed up I couldn't even get near him without getting hit."

The hesitation in his continuation nudged Jip forward. "I took care of Madrox. He was infected and his mutation was stunted. He created dupes that were sicker than him and when I hit them, it didn't make more, it only made the dupe disappear. I killed him much easier than I thought possible."

Scott nodded grimly. "And Bishop?"

"I held him off, Jip unloaded two dozen bullets in his chest. Even Bishop wouldn't be able to survive that, M-Virus or not," Logan finished.

Scott stood silent for a while before he let out a sigh. His whole body seemed to deflate. Shoulders hunched, he lifted a hand to rub his forehead, gripping the edge of the desk with his other hand. He looked and felt much older than he actually was. "Did you tell Hank about Jamie's symptoms?"

"Not yet," Jip said, biting her bottom lip before taking a few steps forward. "Look, Scott…"

"Don't try to smooth things over," Scott said with a shake of his head. He sucked in a breath and straightened his back. "We've gone through terrible, horrific things before. And by we I mean the mutants of Earth, and this is just one more slam to the species. We just need to hold our own as long as possible. None of us are going down without a fight, got it?" He narrowed his eyes behind the colored lenses.

Jip swallowed and nodded, moving back to stand next to Logan. "What do we do next?" she asked.

"Regroup. I'm calling back all of the teams. We need to find a new strategy to deal with this. Once everyone's back we'll have a meeting." The dismissal was Scott standing and turning his back to them, pressing his fingertips against the worn wood of the table.

Jip glanced up at Logan before the two of them left the room. She pulled the door shut behind them and walked in silence, letting her arms swing at her sides until they were at the stairs.

"He's not doing well," she said softly, turning her eyes downward as she descended the steps. "I mean…_really_ not well. I think the loss of too many people is showing itself." She sucked in a breath before continuing. "I know what that does to a person, how it makes them look."

She was talking about Logan. They both knew it. He was continuously losing people. Jip was one of the longest lasting people in his life besides Laura.

"No need to coddle me, babe, you've lost your fair share of people too," Logan reminded her, lifting his hand to rest it on the base of her neck, pressing his rough fingers against the slope of her neck as she reached the bottom step.

"Yet I can never shake you," she said with a small smile, turning around and placing her hands on his chest. Her eyes focused on the small stone in the ring on her finger. Not as shiny as it once was, but it still held all the meaning that it needed to. "Life's long, Logan, might as well make the most of it."

She moved her hands to his face, palms resting against the stubble on his cheeks before she pushed herself to her toes and kissed him. One set of fingers threaded through his hair and the other arm hooked around his neck to bring them as close as possible.

He returned the kiss with a passion that normally died out after a while when it came to couples, but war did that to people. Even mutants.

"Ahem," a throat was cleared behind them. "Don't the two of you have a room for this sort of thing?"

It was Henry. He rarely left his lab, and there he was, standing in the hallway, looking out of place despite the fact that he was one of the first X-Men involved with Xavier's grand plans.

Jip rolled her eyes, as did Logan, and the two stepped away from each other. "I have a few things to tell you, about who was working with Bishop and how their mutations were reacting to the M-Virus," Jip told the doctor sullenly.

Henry nodded, heaving a sigh. "All right. Come see me later."

Jip nodded in response and watched the elder mutant walk up the stairs the two of them had just come down. "Okay," she breathed, slipping an arm around Logan's back. "Let's go see Rogue."

8

Rogue was the only mutant at Xavier's that Jip had been able to connect with when Logan first brought her here. Kitty was a close second, but Rogue had an impact on Jip. She was sick at the time they met, with something akin to the Legacy Virus. The poor girl always seemed to get the sickest the quickest. Odd, considering how powerful she could be with her mutation.

The M-Virus was hitting all of the mutants, not just some. Rogue wasn't special this time, except for the fact that she was still alive despite having been an incubator for the virus for over five years. She was a special lady.

Down in the basement of the Mansion, Rogue even got her own room. And a sealed off incubator for the incubator. For fear that she could contaminate by just being in close proximity, could infect another mutant. Henry had to hazmat suit it every time he took blood or needed to check her vitals.

Jip knocked on the outside metal door just to be courteous, even though the entire room was glass, as was the containment unit that Rogue was laying in. She propped herself up on her elbows and gave a small smile as Jip and Logan walked in.

Despite being in her early fifties by age, but her multiple consumptions of healing factor mutations meant that she looked no more than thirty. Quite a nifty trick if she wasn't dying.

"An' the love birds return," she said with a wink. "Did yah come bearin' good news?"

"Maybe a little," Jip said, walking slowly up to the glass and resting her hand lightly against it.

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Bullshit. Ain't nothin' good'n this world anymore."

"She's got us there," Logan countered, coming up beside Jip and laying a hand on the small of her back. He gave her a toothless smile. "How ya doing, kid?"

She let out a heavy breath and lay back down. "Oh, yah know, busy dyin'."

Logan lifted an arm and leaned it against the concave glass. "Don't be like that. You're a tough bird. We both know you can get through anything life throws at you."

Jip elbowed him in the side. "When did you get so poetic?"

"I've been practicing," he replied smugly.

Rogue enjoyed the two of them acting so lovingly and normal despite the circumstances. Then again, they were built for this sort of thing, living through wars as people around them died in droves. She didn't know how they managed to stay so optimistic all of the time. "Have yah heard from Kris?"

Jip's face faltered and she glanced up at Logan. Kris was another mutant, one that made up Jip's family unit. None of them were blood, but they were her closest friends and loved ones. One of the few that Jip had lost. Not even because of the M-Virus, no. This happened much, much earlier.

"No, not recently." In fact, she hadn't heard from Kris in twenty-eight years. Rogue understood what she meant and didn't consider it a lie. "But no news is good news, right?"

"Or she could be dead," Rogue said bluntly, turning her eyes toward the boring grey ceiling of the pod she was stuffed in. Twenty-eight years was a long time to hold out hope, even for the X-Men.

Logan shook his head. "No way. She's probably holed up with Red somewhere, waiting all this shit out."

Jip nodded. "We all know Red wouldn't let anything happen to her."

Rogue sighed and crossed her arms. "An' we all know Red ain't a genius, he couldn't save her from th' virus."

Jip frowned, wrinkles forming on her forehead. "This shit is depressing." She took her hand off the glass and fisted it, resting it against her hip. "Any news to give us?"

"Me tah yah? Ah never leave this place," Rogue joked wryly before shifting to a more comfortable position on the hard plastic bed. "Why haven't yer two had any kids?"

Jip laughed, short and barky. "Us? Raise children?" She glanced over at Logan. "Sure, we'd be model parents with all the claws and knives and guns and blood everywhere all the time. Besides, Logan has…kids."

Logan arched an eyebrow and nodded in agreement. "She's right, y'know." Of course, only one of his kids was still knocking around. Daken tore up his immune system so much that the M-Virus just ate him up from the inside out, leaving him to die looking like an ancient old man instead of a mutant in his prime. Laura was still around, being stronger and less likely to be reckless.

"All right, all right, no kids," Rogue waved her hands around. "Who else's around still?" That was her way of asking who had succumbed to the M-Virus since last they spoke.

The conversation continued for a good thirty minutes, inducing a few thin laughs and some reminiscing. Rogue couldn't last forever. Her energy was easily sapped by even just talking on top of the M-Virus eating its way through every mutation she ever absorbed. That was the only reason why she was still alive since she was one of the first to contract the virus in the first place.

8

"Still feel like home?" Logan asked, yanking his shirt off and tossing it to the side. The Mansion might have been rebuilt a dozen times, but they always had a place here. It was the ground, the familiar trees, the air…that was what made it any sort of home for the two of them.

"Dunno," Jip shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed and unlacing her boots. "Never had much of a home."

Logan rolled his shoulders, all wounds from the fight just two hours earlier gone. "That's not what I mean."

Jip smirked down at her feet and stood up. "I know that's not what you mean," she sighed, stretching her arms above her head. "I think I just need to sleep for a week. Getting stabbed through the heart does that to a girl."

Logan chuckled softly. "But my girl's been through worse."

"We live terrible lives," Jip said, sidestepping around him and into the bathroom. Her fingers ached and she clenched her hands into fists, leaning them against the countertop. "I'm getting too old for this."

"Not a chance," Logan answered her whisper from the other room.

Jip let out a sigh and dragged her nails through her short hair and across her scalp. "Any chance of a full night's sleep?" she countered, kicking off her jeans.

"That depends. This place gonna stir up old memories?" Logan asked, looking over at her as she leaned in the doorway, crossing her arms.

"Good and bad," Jip answered, holding his gaze for a full thirty seconds before blinking and flicking off the bathroom light. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you, babe," she said with a smile, walking closer and giving him a quick kiss before diving into bed. One would never expect some place to be so nice and cushiony while a war and genocide was going on outside.

She burrowed her face in her pillow and stretched her arms under. "Mmmmm, let me sleep for ten days, will ya?"

"Doubt Summers would let that happen," Logan said, joining her. The bed creaked under his weight, adamantium and all. "Not sure _I_ could let that happen."

Jip chuckled and turned her head to face him. "You couldn't last ten days without me?" she asked with amusement flittering through her voice.

Logan let out a breath and ran his hand up her back, cupping her neck. "Yeah, yeah, _yeah_, you know it."

Keeping her eyes closed, she smiled contently and crossed her ankles under the covers. "Will you at least let me sleep ten hours?"

"Sure thing, babe," he said, massaging her shoulder blades with his fingertips and giving her a scratchy kiss on the corner of her mouth before he settled back down on his side of the bed.

8

Dreams aren't always dreamlike. Sometimes they feel so real you can't tell you're dreaming. Sometimes, it's worse to _know_ you're dreaming than it is to not realize it. Jip should have realized, but she didn't.

There was a typical scene of a diner: booths, a counter, a fat cook and a few waitresses in teal outfits. Jip was sitting at one of the booths, a plate of food in front of her. Everything felt normal, average.

That is, until someone slipped into the booth opposite her. She took a sharp intake of breath.

"Jake," she whispered, freezing on the spot. He looked the same as she remembered. Typical tall, dark and handsome, nineteen years old. He was wearing the same outfit as the last time she had seen him.

He smiled, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "Hey, babe. You look…old."

Jip didn't flinch. "You look the same." She wet her lips and sat back against the flattened booth cushion. "Why…are you here? Why do you look the same?"

"You mean, why do I look the same as the day you killed me?" Jake's voice was too cheerful.

She glanced down at Jake's folded hands. "That was a long time ago. There's no changing the past. I got over killing you a long time ago. I'm not gonna apologize." She sat back and crossed her arms.

There was a flicker not only across Jake's face, but within the building itself. The lights flickered and Jake's face changed. He was a master of illusion…that was his mutation, he had used it to make Jip think she hadn't killed him, but she knew she had. She was barely eighteen then…it was a long time ago.

Jake sat back, revealing a bloodstain under his heart. Her blade had pierced his lung, slipping between ribs. It hadn't killed him immediately; he had enough time and energy to put up an illusion that she hadn't hit him fatally. No matter how big of a manipulative douchebag he had been within his lifetime, he had enough courtesy and humane nature to save Jip the mental scars of killing someone.

_So much for that._ She spent the rest of her life doing nothing _but_ killing people.

"You're living quite well these days," Jake continued. "All I've got to my name is knowing I was your first kill."

"Whatever," Jip huffed.

The lights flickered again. Everyone else disappeared and only the heat lamps between the kitchen and customer seating came back on. The dull light from them created an eerie glow over Jake's face. He had been dead for thirty years, and suddenly, the image of him before her began to decay. The air became filled with the rotting stench of a dead body.

Jip sucked in a breath and nearly choked, crossing her arms so tightly over her chest that she pushed the air right out of her lungs.

"It's a good thing you picked a husband you can kill over and over and not have to worry about _this_." Jake swept a hand across his face as the skin decayed enough to show through to bone and teeth.

Jip lifted her hands slowly and dug her fingernails into her palms, resting her fists on the table. She ran her tongue over her teeth behind her lips. "I'm so glad I killed you."

"_You_ killed _him_?" A chirpy, bright voice that cut through Jip's mind that she hadn't heard in years.

Jip swallowed and turned her attention to the woman who had suddenly appeared at the end of the table. She looked young and beautiful, but she was also very…see-through, like a ghost. But more like how she had appeared the last time Jip had seen her alive.

"Kitty," Jip breathed out. Kitty Pryde was one of the first, if not _the_ first mutant to be killed by the M-Virus. Because of how the M-Virus attacked mutations, Kitty's x-gene was overpowered and she became entirely intangible. Something similar to that had happened before, and they had used a special suit to keep Kitty together in one piece, but the M-Virus hit so fast that she lost hold on her atoms so completely that she literately dissipated into thin air before anyone could save her.

"The one and only, Lady Wolverine," Kitty replied with a wink.

Kitty had been Jip's closest friend at the Mansion, and her death had hit Jip the hardest of all of the deaths in her life. In lei of her death, her husband, the infamous Johnny Blaze, joined the mutant front even though he was far from a mutant. The Ghost Rider, as he was known, was one of the team members that lived at the Mansion these days, and he occasionally worked with Reaper, who was _actually _a mutant.

"Wha…what're _you_ doing here?" Jip asked finally, more shaken by Kitty's appearance than Jake's.

"Saving your ass apparently," Kitty replied, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "And to shut this fool up." She jerked a thumb at Jake, who lost his ability to speak due to the fact that he was almost entirely a skeleton now and even in dreams, he couldn't speak in that form.

"Thanks?" Jip replied, uncertainty ringing through her voice. She moved to her feet and faced her deceased best friend. "I've missed you, Kitty."

"Yeah, I know. You and the lot," Kitty replied, lowering her eyes. "I've missed you all, too."

Jip nodded. "Yeah…_why_ are you here?"

Kitty smiled sadly. "You'll figure it out as soon as you wake up."

Jip frowned as the room began to light up from beneath her feet. "What?"

"You should really wake up now," Kitty emphasized. The room brightened even stronger. "Wake up, Jip. Wake up!"

She did. Gasping for a breath of air as she woke up, Jip saw nothing but white until her eyes focused.

"Holy shit," she whispered, sitting up and letting the sheet pool around her waist, the comforter half off the bed on Logan's side.

"Whazzit?" Logan awoke sluggishly, blinking widely and furrowing his eyebrows. "What's the matter?"

Breathing deeply, Jip frowned and tilted her head to the side as the rest of the Mansion began to wake up with similar jolting awakenings. Not answering Logan, she threw off the sheet and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

"Get up, something's happening," she told him, moving through the room to yank on her pants and head into the hall.

Logan followed forty seconds later, joining her at the end of the hall as the adults and students rushed into the lower level of the mansion. Among these mutants was one of the last telepaths still alive, Betsy Braddock.

"Betsy, what's going on?" Cyclops joined the group of them, trying to calm the much depleted _masses_.

The telepath frowned and pressed her fingertips to her temples. "Would everyone please quiet down?" She asked both audibly and mentally and the chatter of nightmares and ghosts settled down almost instantly.

Jip crossed her arms and pressed her shoulder into Logan's bare arm, waiting. She didn't like waiting. "Let's go check on Rogue," she whispered. Logan nodded and the two slipped off, just in time to hear Betsy gasp and whisper out the word _Limbo_.

8

"Did you dream of anyone?" Jip asked once they were in the elevator heading down to the underground levels.

"Me? Dream of the dead? Every night of my life, kid," Logan answered. "You?"

Jip licked her lips and turned her eyes to the ground. "Kitty. And Jake," she added after a momentary pause.

"Jake?" Logan repeated, eyebrows lifting slightly. "Isn't he…?"

"Yep. Started getting on my tail and then turned into a fucking skeleton," she said, disgruntled. "Kitty was cheerful as ever…missed that."

Logan grunted in response before the elevator ticked open. Jip nearly jogged through the bright corridor. "Rogue's guilt is bad enough on its own…she doesn't need a few meetings with some dead folks to get her worked up," Jip mentioned under her breath. She didn't need to speak loudly for Logan to hear her. He didn't need to answer for her to know that he was worried about Rogue as well. They had been friends longer than Jip had known the glove wearing woman.

Halfway through the compound, the air filled with a magnetic pulse and crackles. Jip and Logan stopped short and both fell to tensed muscles and fighting stances. They'd be ready if this was an attack.

But it wasn't.

A floating, glowing disk appeared eye level: a teleporting system used by a select few people known to the superhuman world. The top half of a familiar figure arrived through the light.

"Pixie?" Jip said, widening her eyes and flinching backward. Megan Gwynn was one of the young X-Men who had disappeared during the first few months of the M-Virus outbreak. She was a young woman now, though her soul-dagger had kept her aging down to a slow crawl.

"Oh my god, guys!" Megan exclaimed, the rest of the teleport disk continued to move down to the floor. "I did it! We made it! How long have I been gone?"

"Um." Jip glanced up at Logan. "Almost five years."

"Holy shit!" Megan squeaked. "Well, I brought the answers to our prayers. Or…whatever."

"What do you mean?" Logan replied in his deep morning voice.

"Oh right." Megan turned around, spoke a few words in a magical tongue and another teleport disk appeared. This time, revealing two new figures. Very, very familiar figures.

"Kris!" Jip exclaimed, setting her eyes on the smaller of the two. She was a woman who Jip was almost just as close with as Kitty and who had disappeared nearly thirty years prior, ages before the M-Virus had begun its treacherous wave over the mutant population. "Oh my god…"

"Red," Logan said, talking to the other figure in the teleporter disk. Red, otherwise known as Hellboy to the media, was an interdimensional demon whose home was…Limbo. He was literately red, his skin from head to tail, he had a huge hand of stone and ground down horns growing from his forehead. "Well shit."

"Well said," Red replied as Kris rushed forward and nearly knocked Jip off her feet with a hug.

"Jesus Christ, feels like ages since I've seen you!" Kris exclaimed, curly brown hair pulled back, sweat and dirt staining her face.

It was then that Jip realized that Kris hadn't aged a day since the last time she had seen the younger mutant. She should look to be fifty by now, but instead…

"Kris, Kris, wait." Jip grabbed her shoulders and shoved her an arms length away. "How…how long do you think you've been gone?"

If it was something that Jip knew, it was that time moved in mysterious ways between parallel dimensions. If Kris didn't look any older…

"A few months," Kris said as if it was obvious and Jip was the crazy one.

Jip frowned slightly and looked over Kris's shoulder at Logan, Red and Megan, who were all talking in quiet tones a few yards away. "Kris, honey…I don't know how to tell you this…"

"Tell me what?" Kris was more than stubborn. But Jip knew how to handle that. After all, she was married to Logan.

"You and Red…you've been gone for twenty-eight years."

Kris looked like she'd swallowed her tongue and she stepped back, waving her hands. "_What?_ Twenty…eight…years? What the fuck!" Eyes full of fire, she whirled around and walked between the small group of three, shoving Red back with hands to his chest. "What the _hell_! We were gone for almost thirty _years!_ You said…"

"I said, sweetlips, that I ain't good at Limbo. I try to stay away from that shithole as much as possible," Hellboy replied. "How was I supposed to know that time moved so different?"

Kris began her retort, but Pixie flew a few feet into the air with her nearly translucent wings. "_LISTEN!_" For a petite girl, she could pack a strong yell, enough to get them all to shut up. "Look, I didn't tell Kris and Red how long they'd been gone, but I told them about the M-Virus, okay? And you know what? The three of us found a mystical cure."

"You can't be serious," Logan said. Of course, he was being serious. He wasn't one for believing sparks of hope.

"Very serious," Red nodded.

"We met this magician who ran from a parallel universe to Earth, one that had succumbed to a M-Virus of their own. He found a cure, and…once Pixie did some dealings with him, he gave us his cure."

"Oh my god," Jip whispered out, as soon as the words settled in. "Oh my _god_. We could…we could save the rest of the mutants…" Allowing herself a moment to believe in the hope, unlike her husband, she pulled herself together quickly with a shake of her head. "Okay, Megan, go get Hank, he's upstairs with the rest of the mutants. Logan, go check on Rogue. Kris, Red, follow me to Hank's lab. I know he's a science guy, but he's desperate, he'll take any help he can."

No one questioned her orders. They were sound. And no one questioned the fact that she was the one giving orders. She had shown herself to be a sound leader in the past years and she had grown in confidence. Even Megan, Kris and Red could tell, and they'd been gone for decades.

Walking quickly through the corridors, Kris and Red trailed behind, bickering like an old married couple…which they probably would have been if they hadn't disappeared for twenty-eight years that only felt like a few months to them. It was mind boggling, and Jip tried not to think too much about it. The possibility of saving the last few thousand mutants across the globe was enough to make her focused.

Pulling open the door to the lab, she motioned for them to follow her inside. "Just don't…touch anything. Hank will get upset." She walked far into the room before turning around and crossing her arms. "Um…so this cure…you sure it'll work?"

Kris and Red shared a glance. Red looked smug and nodded and Kris gnawed on her cheek and met Jip's eyes. "Yep."

Jip slowly allowed herself to smile, not something she did often when there wasn't a smirk involved. They could do it. They could save them all.


End file.
